Comments on: We”ve started reducing our carbon footprint

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:47:05 +0000

Give me a break. I’ll continue to get my water from the tap. Comparing apples, lamb, roses etc. is spurious logic. Conservation means no bottled water. By the way I pick up at least one of your littered, beautiful PET bottles on my running route every month. Here’s an ethical decision, “Don’t buy bottled water, period!”

By: FIJI Green Gal

FIJI Green Gal — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:16:51 +0000

Hi LittleCarbonFeet – Thanks for your comment. Our SVP Sustainable Growth, Thomas Mooney, answered this question/concern in a recent interview with Sustainable Life Media: “Bottled water does not replace water that comes from the tap. Instead, it replaces something else that people were buying in packaged form. If you look at beverage industry figures you’ll find that the growth of bottle water essentially matches the decline in carbonated soft drink sales. That means that people are trading their Cokes or Pepsis for bottled water – a product that is not only healthier but also has a much smaller environmental footprint, in terms of both greenhouse gas emissions and packaging materials. It takes a lot more energy and packaging to keep a carbonated beverage in place. When you think about it that way, as the bottled water industry grows the overall environmental impact of the beverage industry in fact goes down. It’s just a matter of putting it in context. We certainly don’t argue that the environmental impact of bottled water is lower than that of tap water. But that’s not what we’re replacing.”

By: LittleCarbonFeet

LittleCarbonFeet — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:21:14 +0000

OK – so this is helpful, but still, what costs are you externalizing throughout your supply chain? What message are you giving about drinking bottled water vs. municipal tap water? Bottled water is fine as long as its Fiji? What is the message in the bottle?

A 7% reduction in packaging is commendable, but I can get a 100% reduction by choosing an alternative product, municipal tap water. Being less bad is not enough – it is time to be good.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:11:20 +0000

Outstanding! It’s great to see this focus on environmental issues.

By: FIJI Green Gal

FIJI Green Gal — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:00:52 +0000

Andrea, thanks for sharing that thought. Influencing our industry – and businesses at large – to be more environmentally conscious is something that matters a lot to us at FIJI Water. Our business itself is just a blip on the radar in the U.S. and global economy, so we’ll have the greatest impact if we encourage other businesses and people to follow suit. For example, bottled water is a mere 0.33% of all U.S. municipal solid waste, and FIJI Water comprises less than 2% of the bottled water industry. So to really make a difference, we need to do more than just change ourselves.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:44:20 +0000

You could become the industry leader in environmentally conscious bottled water. What an opportunity! I’d love to see alternative closures that stay attached to the bottle, examples of specific programs you are working on to increase recycling of plastics, and your contribution to fixing the infrastructure of plastic recylcling in the US (only 3.5% of plastics are recycled in the US in any way).

“The majority of plastic garbage in the ocean comes from land: bottles and cups dropped in the street and washed by rain into the storm sewer, into the rivers and eventually into the ocean.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=4528488&page=1

By: Rik Lantz

Rik Lantz — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:54:49 +0000

I just submitted a comment on how low your reported number – in error. It was a sustainability group http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/04/09/fiji-water-releases-carbon-footprint-of-products-challenges-industry that dropped 80,000 tonnes from your estimate. I have contacted them aout the error.

Thanks,
Rik

By: Rik Lantz

Rik Lantz — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:48:28 +0000

Dear Fiji:

I applaud your efforts in tackling this issue head-on. I have always thought Fiji water was an example of western excess and self-indulgance; Transporting water halfway around the world doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and therefore I rarely drink Fiji water. I am surprised (and skeptical) of how small your carbon footprint is – 5000 metric tons of CO2 for your whole company – that’s the equivalent of the average annual emissions of about 1000 cars. Where can I go to see the math?

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:45:14 +0000

Yes, it’s just another idiotic, liberal, feel-good program that doesn’t accomplish anything except making brownie points with the Hollywood elitists who value style over substance.

By: FIJI Green Gal

FIJI Green Gal — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:15:30 +0000

Icelandic Glacial has indeed claimed it’s carbon neutral. But in their carbon footprint, they didn’t include emissions from distribution after the product arrives at ports in the destination countries. (Source: BusinessWeek) That can add up to a pretty big percentage of the product’s lifecycle emissions. FIJI Water (apart from being carbon negative, not neutral) accounted for emissions from every activity required to get the product into your hand. We believe this is the most honest approach – when we tell a consumer that the bottle has a footprint of X g CO2eq, the consumer is going to assume we accounted for everything – they’re not going to think, “Oh, of course that’s the footprint just from emission sources where FIJI has equity share.”